Hello All,
Having a spot of bother with something that should be straightfroward.
I'm setting up RAID1 Linux server install. The hardware is a HP
Microserver N54L. It has a non-UEFI BIOS.
I want to install a long-term support Linux server-oriented distro. So
far I've tried both CentOS 7 and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
I want to install the OS on two 4Tb discs as software RAID1 (mdadm)
However, no matter what I try or what partition scheme I do - I always
end up with problems in the `grub-install /dev/sd[ab]` step.
The specific error I get is not helpful, it justs says something like
"grub-install step failed. This is a fatal error." (see screenshots
from the Ubuntu 18.04 install)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ds9ogmkZpnHZZxr82
I've of course been Googling this and posted in the Ubuntu forum
but... nothing has worked so far.
I can get some partial success, eg. the Ubuntu installer with RAID1
sometimes appears to install GRUB to /dev/sda but fails to do with
/dev/sdb. I can still continue with the installation and boot into the
OS and observe the RAID1 resync taking place.
I then tried to run `grub-install /dev/sdb` post-install but this
seems to mess things up further and /dev/sdb no longer appears "up" in
the array.
The discs are 4TB WD Red which are new. As a test, I installed Ubuntu
to both discs independently in non-RAID and the install went smoothly.
I wanted everything in one partition for simplicity but someone
suggested I try a separate /boot partition. This did not make any
difference. One odd observation is the free space at the beginning and
end of both discs by the guided-partitioner (see screenshots)
On this server hardware I also tried to install the OS on two 160Gb
discs in software RAID1 and the install went smoothly.
My conclusion is that it might be something in the way the installer
auto-partitions the discs and/or something esoteric with the discs.
One thing I noticed with the CentOS 7 installer is that it explicitly
sets up a 1Mb bios_grub partition which as I understand is for GRUB to
work properly with discs >2Tb in size. I can't recall if Ubuntu does
the same (from screenshot it does not).
I've been learning about partition table types. I am assuming the
installer picks the GPT partition table format. This is fine because
of the discs size being >2Tb since MBR format isn't able to address
bigger discs. GPT also seems to be independent of BIOS being UEFI or
non-UEFI and something that just needs support in the OS.
Any ideas? Thanks!
--
Please post to: Hampshire@???
Web Interface:
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
LUG URL:
http://www.hantslug.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------
